


My Heart

by Rhymepod195



Series: AkuSai on Main [7]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Isa accidentally gets called Saïx and then thinks Lea died, It’s ‘Torture Isa’ day lads, M/M, cause he’s a self-sacrificial dumbass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 04:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18958039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhymepod195/pseuds/Rhymepod195
Summary: Isa doesn’t have a great day, and when Lea doesn’t come back from hunting Heartless it only gets worse.





	My Heart

Sometimes it was easy to forget that he was no longer Axel, and that Isa was no longer Saïx. All it would take was a slip of the tongue, a brief moment of forgetting, and he found himself slipping into old habits that he no longer needed. He tried to catch himself whenever he slipped into one of those habits, but sometimes he couldn’t catch himself quickly enough.

 

“How’s that list coming along?”, Isa had asked, an innocent enough question as he watched Lea write up a list of things he needed to get before meeting the others at the Gummyship for another adventure fighting Heartless.

“You can knock next time, Saï—“, he knew what he had said the second it left his mouth. He just meant to tease, he didn’t mean to-

His head snapped up towards Isa who had tensed up, jaw clenched, eyebrows furrowed and  _ hurt _ in his eyes.

“I see. I will leave you to it then.”, Isa promptly turned around and left the room, a tremble in his voice that positively broke Lea’s heart. He was quick to try and follow, wanting to apologise, that he hadn’t  _ meant _ to call him that.

“Isa, wait! I didn’t mean to…”, he said, catching Isa’s hand, trying to tug at Isa’s arm to get him to look at him. “It was a slip of the tongue, I’m sorry. I really am.”

“If you hadn’t meant to, you wouldn’t have done so in the first place.”, Isa hissed at him, glaring straight ahead, though his rage didn’t reach his eyes, there was just hurt in there. He wasn’t Saïx anymore, he wasn’t the monster that the organization had turned him into, and for  _ Lea _ of all people to call him by that name hit him in places he knew vere vulnerable beyond anything else.

“I know, I was wrong to let it slip, I’m really sorry.”, he wanted Isa to look at him, to see that he really  _ was _ sorry. “Please, I’ll make it up to you. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Isa hesitated, finally meeting Lea’s eyes, biting the inside of his cheek as he forced his tear ducts to stay dry, though his eyes had definitely had taken on that about-to-cry sheen. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you, I promise, I won’t do it again…”, Lea tried to coax Isa into opening up, carefully stepping into his space, taking his hands into his own, gentle in every movement, afraid that if he made just a single wrong move he would wrench the hurt in Isa’s eyes in deeper. “I know I can’t ask you to do anything considering what I did, but please let me make it up to you.”, he all but pleaded, lifting one of Isa’s hands to cup his cheek, pressing a gentle kiss to the meat of his palm.

Isa every so barely parted his lips as if to speak, heart still aching at being called Saïx by the man he loved, but he could also recognise that Lea really  _ did _ regret doing so. He sighed softly, averting his eyes, though not putting up much of a fight. “Alright… I’ll let you make it up to me.”

“Thank you, I swear you won’t regret saying that.”, Lea replied with a relieved smile, cupping Isa’s own cheek with his free hand, stepping closer, pressing their foreheads together. “Can I…?”, he wanted to ask, wanted to make sure Isa was alright with what he was doing. There was no way he was going to allow himself to mess this up.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”, he whispered before pressing a soft kiss to Isa’s lips, smiling when Isa relaxed into it, brushing his fingers through his hair.

 

He would have been happy just continuing to kiss all of Isa’s hurt away, but they were interrupted by Lea’s gummyphone ringing. Lea grumbled as he looked at the screen, unsurprised to see Terra.

“Hey, Terra.”

“Hey, Lea! Are you on your way? We just arrived in the Radiant Garden, and we want to get going as soon as possible.”

“Uh.. I was about to leave, I just need to pick some stuff up before I come over. I’ll be there in no time though!”

“Great! Say hi to Isa for me.”

“Will do, see you in a bit.”, he said, hanging up, sighing softly. “I promise I’ll be back before you know it, ok?”

“You always do.”, Isa couldn’t help but smile, pulling Lea into a kiss before letting him go, sighing as he watched Lea slip out the door, the redhead blowing him a kiss before closing the door.

 

It never took long for them to finish hunting some Heartless, and Lea was always one of the first for them to drop off. So, when he went to the landing spot for the gummyship, he wasn’t surprised to have beat them there.

“You’re back early.”, he commented, eyebrows furrowing when he noticed the pensive look on everyone’s faces. Everyone was here, why did they look so upset then-? “Where is Lea?” He shifted his gaze between them, eyebrows furrowing slowly as they all avoided eye contact. “Where is my heart?”

“I’m sorry, Isa, we…”, Xion started, but choked up on her words, head ducking between her shoulders as she visibly fought back tears.

“There was an accident…”, Terra added, arms around the sniffling Xion and Roxas, though he himself looked visibly upset as well.

“What do you mean?”

“Part of the tunnel collapsed, we tried to find him but…”, Terra couldn’t finish the sentence, averting his eyes as well, lips pressed together. “He.. He’s dead.”

 

_ ‘Where is my Heart?’, those were the words he had used when he had fought Sora as Saïx, enraged at his best friend, his  _ **_heart_ ** _ , being taken from him. His heart, his everything, his Lea, far from his grasp. They were meant to stay together, they had each other now, never separate for long, always returning to each other no matter the distance between them. _

 

His world shattered. Lea was dead. Lea was  _ dead _ and he wasn’t there to help. His shock must have been evident on his face, seeing as Terra must have been apologising, but he couldn’t hear him. It was an odd sensation, losing his sense of hearing as it hit him all at once.

“He can’t be dead.”, he couldn’t be, not his Lea, not his bright and lively and confident Lea that always found his way back to him.

“Isa, I’m sorry, but—“

“He’s not dead!”, he snapped at him, hot tears of grief and rage in his eyes, flames flickering from his fist as he clenched them at his side. “He’s not dead until you prove it!”

“I- We can’t go back yet, we haven’t recuperated.“, Terra tried to explain, not wanting to put anyone in unneeded danger, even if it was to search for Lea, though he understood Isa’s point of view. If it was Aqua in danger, he would be looking for her with no regard for his own safety either. “If you let us rest, we can go back with you-”

“Then stay here!”, he snarled, a blue glow of his berserk state encasing his eyes, but tears still streaking his eyes, rage directed at no one in particular. Perhaps himself for letting Lea just leave, or for not coming with him. After all, if he had been there, perhaps  _ everyone _ would have walked off that ship. “I’m going to find him, with or without you.”, he went to storm past them, but Xion stopped him, stopping in his tracks when he felt her hands against his chest.

“Isa, please, calm down.”, she pleaded with him, ignoring the sting of Isa’s flames.

“Xion, I have to find him.”

“I know you do, we all do, but… How much good are we divided?”

 

His breath was shaky and heaving as the flames dissipated and his eyes returned to normal, though the tears stayed. His head hurt, grief and rage mingling in his heart, shoulders shaking.

“Isa…”, Terra moved next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll come with you, he’s our friend as much as he is yours. We can recuperate in the gummyship.”, he offered, hating to see any of his friends in this much distress.

“Uh-huh! We can do this!”, Roxas added, a determined look on his face despite his tears.

 

The flight back was somber, not many words could really be exchanged without turning awkward, not with Isa’s nervous pacing up and down the Gummyship’s small deck.

He was terrified, considering every other alternative of what could have happened. Death was the worst case scenario, that he’d find a battered and broken body wearing Lea’s face, to have to bury him, to find him again as a Nobody, only remembering his emotions rather than  _ feeling _ them. Or maybe he’d find him still-dying, wounded and alone in some dark cave, too exhausted to even light a single small flame. It felt such a small chance to find him alive, let alone still well enough to still fight. However, he had to remind himself that Lea had spent ten years as Organisation VIII’s assassin and enforcer. He knew how to keep himself alive, despite his tendency to get himself killed via others or his own fiery powers. He shook his head, refusing to think about the possibility that Lea was dead.

He had  _ promised _ he would be back. Lea was never one to break promises between them.

 

It was a bit of a walk to the mines, and soon found the area that had collapsed. Isa’s stomach dropped as they began their work on getting through. Each stone he lifted out of the way he was terrified of seeing a leg, a hand, a strand of Lea’s distinctly fiery red hair, a single speck of blood on the stones. Always paranoid his worst fears were real, that he was truly dead.

But, as they finally got through to the other side, there was no trace of a body, only a shattered Gummyphone. The shattered phone explained why they weren’t able to contact him at all.

On one hand, it lifted so much off his shoulders to know he still lived, but on the other hand it burdened him even more knowing that Lea was  _ somewhere _ in these caves, possibly hurt and unable to fight, and unable to contact them. He swallowed as they made their way through the mineshafts and large hollowed-out caves.

 

He called out to him, as did the others, hoping,  _ praying _ for some kind of response right up until where his throat was raw and painful from shouting so much, despite Terra’s healing magic soothing the pain some. He still had his voice, but it just  _ hurt _ to use, much like his heart ached more and more at every passing minute that they didn’t find Lea.

Where could he be? They don’t know how deep these mines go. How far would Lea go to try and find an exit, and how many more Heartless would he run into? He clenched his fists at his sides, pressing his lips together in a line, fighting back his emotions. He couldn’t let them get in his way, not now, not when he was still looking.

 

~~~~

 

He hadn’t meant to get separated from the rest. One minute they were fighting heartless, the next the supports holding up the mineshaft they were in were buckling. They ran as fast as they could, but Roxas had tripped on the rails in the shaft.

It was either him or Roxas, and his first instinct was to save Roxas. So what he did, was he picked him up and tossed him into Terra’s arms, and that was when the ceiling came down on him. He didn’t know how he had managed to get out unharmed, but he knew he had to find another way out and back to the gummyship. Back to Isa.

He tried to call out to the others, that he’d catch up with him, but he never got a reply, figuring that too much of the shaft had collapsed for sound to reach them. He couldn’t find his gummyphone, thinking he must have lost it back when the ceiling dropped on him. 

 

So, he summoned his keyblade, wreathing it in flames as he made his way through the dark tunnels to maybe find an exit. Lighting the torches along his path helped, marking the walls at regular intervals to ensure he didn’t get turned around, making a mental map of the place in his mind.

But, it felt like days had passed since he had gotten stuck, and the rations he had brought with him were running low. He had found an underground spring, sure, but he still needed food, and he didn’t entirely trust the mushrooms growing down here.

 

He sighed, drawing out the map he had in his head, trying to figure out where there were tunnels and caves he had not yet explored, eyebrows furrowing as he looked it over.

“Isa is going to be  _ so _ mad with me.”, he grumbled, frowning to himself. “‘I’ll be back before you know it’, man I really jinxed this one.”, he scratched the back of his head, and had been about to continue trying to figure out the next place to explore when he heard the telltale sound of Heartless forming.  _ Great. _

 

~~~~

 

Isa had been about to give up hope when he found the first marks. He recognised the mark - a crescent moon eclipsing the sun. Ever the one for something sappy, he  _ knew _ this had to be Lea. He followed the scratches in the walls, fingers tracing what he thought had to be the most recent symbol, trying to picture the map in his head.

Lea had always been the better of them both to memorise maps without ever having to physically see it, hence why  ~~ Axel ~~ Lea had been the Assassin and Enforcer instead of him. He was better with numbers than visiting physical places.

 

“Where are you…?”, he mumbled to himself, eyebrows furrowing slightly, closing his eyes as he tried to do that trick that Sora always seemed to be able to do.  _ What does my heart say? _

“Isa, look! I think he was here earlier.”, Terra called over, motioning to half a footprint in the dirt, the distinct sun motif of the soles of Lea’s shoes visible. “Maybe within the last few hours or so?”

“Thank you. Where did he go?”, he asked as he crouched down, fingers just barely hovering over the footprint as he looked at it, then looking back up to Terra.

“Hm.. We’re not sure, the shaft splits in the direction he went, and both of them are pure stone without any dirt we could track him in.”

“We could try and split up? I can come with you, Isa, and Roxas could go with Terra?”, Xion offered, ever the level-head of the two teenagers.

“Yeah! We’ll cover more ground like that, and if one of us finds Lea we have our gummy phones!”, Roxas waved his gummy phone to emphasise his point.

Isa was hesitant to have them all split up, but they had a point. None of them would be alone if they split up into pairs, and they  _ did _ have their gummyphones. “Alright, we can split up. But stick together, we don’t need to get separated any more than we already have.”

“I’ll make sure Roxas doesn’t do anything too daring.”, Terra said, amused at Roxas’ offended  _ Hey! _ at his comment.

 

And so they split up, two down each of the two shafts that Lea could have gone down. Xion and Isa down the right shaft, Roxas and Terra down the left.

“There’s more marks on the walls, he definitely came this way.”, Xion said as she stopped by the mark on the wall, tilting her head some as she thought. “We’ve seen them in so many different shafts…”

“He’s marking pathways he’s already explored. He’s good at making mental maps, he’ll be looking for an alternate exit.”

“Oohh, that makes sense.”

“That’s why he was the Assassin and Enforcer when we were still Nobodies, he’s much better at this than myself.”, a small smile came to him when Xion snorted softly at that.

“He is?”

“Always was. I’m much better at numbers than creating mental maps. Besides, a Claymore isn’t exactly stealthy, is it?”

“Good point.”, she said with a giggle, continuing their journey.

 

They hadn’t expected to find him, had always kept a hand on their gummyphones in case the other two called. But after entering another shaft they saw the familiar glow of flames at the end of it where it must have opened into a natural cave. And then they heard the voice.

 

“ **_BACK OFF!_ ** ”, Lea’s voice rang through the air, and those two simple words made Isa’s heart soar, already running before he realised his feet had left the ground. The only reason he didn’t drop off the sudden stop was because Xion had pulled him back, keeping him from breaking his legs on the drop.

The view they got brought tears to Isa’s eyes, even as they spotted Roxas and Terra at the other end of the cave.

 

Lea was alive, and he was  _ angry _ , flames wreathing his keyblade and eyes, and it was  _ glorious _ .

“I’m so sick of being stuck in this stupid mine! First a collapse, and now  _ you _ !”, Lea shouted at the heartless assaulting him, grabbing a shadow and throwing it into another small group of shadows, causing them to bounce the way bowling kegs would at the bowling alley. “I don’t have a job, I’ve been an Assassin for  **TEN** years, now give me your damn Munny already so I can buy that stupid ring to propose to my boyfriend to! I should have been home  **AGES** ago!!”, he snarled with entirely too much rage, and yet there was still affection in there, masterfully weaved into his screaming, bringing his keyblade down on the shadows he had just tossed about the cave.

Isa could feel his cheeks heating up as his brain registered what he had just overhead. Lea had been planning to  _ propose _ to him. Evidently Xion had also registered that sentence, seeing as she gasped softly, hands on her cheeks as she beamed up at him.

 

Isa jumped down as the last Heartless felt and the flames left Lea’s body. Roxas and Terra were already with him, running over and hugging him, apologising profusely and both were now in tears, the relief to know that Lea was fine overcoming their tear ducts.

“C’mon, you know it takes more than that to kill me!”, Lea did his best to comfort them, though there were also visible tears in his eyes, grinning as they hugged.

“Axel!”, Xion called out, running over and joining the hug, sniffling as he hugged her back.

“Awww, hey Xion. Sorry I made you guys worry.”

“Lea!”, Isa called out, immediately catching his attention, the look on Lea’s face most accurately described as ‘deer in the headlights’.

“Isa?! What are you doing here? I thought you were still in the Radiant Garden-?”

“You asshole, you made me think you had  _ died _ ! Of course I couldn’t just sit around in our apartment and wait for you to prove my worries wrong.”, he hissed, tears once again flowing down his cheeks as he yanked Lea into a kiss, arms wrapped around him tightly, refusing to let him go again, not that he had finally found him again.

Lea hadn’t anticipated the kiss, but soon melted into it, sighing softly, tugging Isa closer into the group hug. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Moonlight.”, he said, voice gentle with genuine sorrow, hating to see Isa upset in any way, shape, or form. He raised an eyebrow at Roxas at his exaggerated gagging noises. “Hey, let me have this.”

“You two are so sappy!”, Roxas complained, but his voice had no bite to it as he just continued hugging Lea.

“Comes with dating. You’ll understand when you get to it, half-pint.”, Lea teased, pressing another kiss to Isa’s lips just to tease Roxas further.

 

By the time they had all gotten back to the gummy ship Lea was exhausted, the constant adrenaline of being trapped in a mine on his own finally crashing. Isa had easily noticed, partially because Lea had begun clinging to him as he often did when he was sleepy.

So, as they got in, he grabbed a few of the ‘emergency’ blankets and pillows that were stashed on the Gummyship, setting up on one of the bunkbeds. Terra saw what was happening and graciously offered to fly, which Isa was thankful for since he was very reluctant to leave Lea out of his sight, let alone arm’s length, right now. 

Lea was soon fast as asleep, arms tightly wound around Isa’s middle, with Xion and Roxas snuggled up to him on either side, and Isa acting as a base for them all. His legs were at a bit of an awkward angle, but he’s been in worse positions trying to accommodate for all of them. He sighed softly, leaning against the wall, pillow propped behind his head and neck to keep himself from getting a stiff neck, smiling softly at the sleeping pile curled up on top of him.

 

Lea hadn’t always been taller than him. When they were children, it was Isa actually that had the height advantage, but as they became older, especially since they had become Nobodies in their teenage years, Lea had shot up like a beanstalk. But, right now, despite his gangly noodle-like build, he looked… small. He supposed it could be because he was all but curled into a ball right now, and because he was asleep, but he felt it ran deeper than that.

One hand moved to gently brush through Lea’s fiery hair, smiling that, even in his sleep, he leaned into the contact, no matter how gently he applied the pressure, no matter how just-barely it was there. It vaguely reminded him of an overgrown cat wanting affection, purring in its sleep (though the closest he got to purring was a low noise in Lea’s throat as he adjusted his position). Xion and Roxas were no better, curled up about just as much as Lea, they had all but formed a pile of snooze in his lap, which he found endearing either way, even if his left thigh was beginning to cramp up by now.

 

When they arrived in the Radiant Garden he thanked Terra for flying them, ruffling Xion’s and Roxas’ hair, reassuring them that they’d meet again soon for their usual clock tower ice cream time, leading a still-sleepy Lea off the Gummyship and back to their apartment.

As soon as the door to their apartment closed and locked he pulled Lea into another kiss, just to reassure himself this wasn’t just a dream, that Lea was really home and not actually dead in those mines. “Don’t you scare me like that ever again, you hear me?”, he grumbled, cupping Lea’s cheeks in his hands, pressing their foreheads together once he had broken the kiss.

Lea more than happily returned the kiss, a dopey grin on his face, opting to just kiss Isa again rather than answer with words, hands comfortably resting on Isa’s hips. “I know, I’m sorry. Won’t happen again, Moonlight.”, he said in-between peppering kisses, slowly working the tension out of Isa’s body.

“You are impossible.”, Isa said with no bite in his voice, an  _ actual _ smile on his face now, gently tugging Lea in the direction of their bed so that they could get some sleep. Did he care it was the middle of the afternoon? Not particularly, after what they both just went through they deserved a  _ loooooong _ snooze.

 

~~~~

 

“So… I heard you wanted to buy me a ring?”, he mused, raising an eyebrow at Lea as they walked back home to their apartment, having just gotten back to the Radiant Garden from ice cream time in Twilight Town. 

“Oh! You overheard that, huh?”, Lea said, a flustered smile on his face as he scratched the back of his head, cheeks flushing at having been found out. “It was supposed to be a surprise but… I guess that cat’s out the bag, huh?”

“I’m surprised you managed to keep it hidden for however long you hid it for. Usually you can’t wait to tell me about things.”, he teased, giving him a teasing elbow to the side, though it was barely more than a nudge.

“Hey, I can be secretive! Assassin, remember? Besides, I still fully intend on the reveal to be a susprise. I don’t even have the thing yet.”, he huffed at the nudge, returning it by bumping his shoulder against Isa’s.

“Alright, I’ll let you surprise me.”, he chuckled, tugging Lea down to press a kiss to his cheek, which got him a delighted grin on Lea’s part.

“Hell yeah! It’ll be the best surprise I ever got you!”


End file.
